The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord

Primary Stages presents the NY premiere of this comedy in which three of history’s most famous men debate everything from religion to literature to marriage. More…

Thomas Jefferson (author of the Declaration of Independence), Charles Dickens (the man who brought us 'A Christmas Carol' and 'Oliver Twist'), and Count Leo Tolstoy (the epic Russian novelist of 'War and Peace' fame) are trapped in a limbo where each believes his path to salvation depends on convincing the other two that they are wrong. Tony-nominated director Kimberly Senior ('Disgraced') helms this battle of truly biblical proportions. Written by Scott Carter, the executive producer of 'Real Time with Bill Maher.'

"'Discord' is, when pared downed to its existential essence, nothing more than the title implies...There are laughs aplenty amidst the often stimulating haranguing, especially during the first half...The most highly charged and emotional segments deal with the contradictions in these men's lives and lifestyles that often decry their moral and ethical convictions...The play gets just a tad too dense and less purposefully epigrammatic...A visit with three such egotistical souls has much to offer."
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"Carter has used his encyclopedic knowledge of Jefferson, Dickens and Tolstoy’s lives and written works to have his characters beat up on each other with erudite, dizzyingly delightful jabs...Under Kimberly Senior’s astute direction, there’s method in having an American founding father register as a bore...Egomaniacs that they are, the men of 'Discord' force each other to confront the hypocrisy at the core of their lives. It’s here that the symmetry of Carter’s play is thrown off."
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"This is not just a philosophical and intellectual fight night, but also one with many laughs and barbs along the way...The play is excellent at parsing the different beliefs and facts of the men’s lives and the clashing significances of their work and legacies, and yet you want some kind of theatrical jeopardy as to why they should be together and what could result of them being together in this strange celestial room.
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“Carter has so much to say apparently, but sadly, takes far too much time getting to the point...Laurence as Jefferson and Sesma as Tolstoy are strong and believable in their characterizations, making us believe they are the souls of these serious men. Boutté, on the other hand, never really resonates as the flamboyant Dickens...Carter doesn’t have as much to say as he and we had hoped in the end...It’s diverting and amusing but leaves us unsatisfied.”
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"It was only at that point, about an hour in, that the play came to life for me and I stopped struggling to stay awake...Neither the humor nor the lofty discourse engaged me much. Maybe I nodded off for a crucial moment that would have made all the difference. I doubt it...That this play attracted a director the caliber of Kimberly Senior makes me wonder what she saw in it that I missed."
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“Scott Carter's ‘The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord’ has an interesting premise. However, at 90 minutes and with almost no action, the play outstays its welcome. It has the potential for drama, but in this form it is mostly an intellectual debate on philosophical topics much of which are difficult to take in on a first hearing.”
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"The surprises of this ambitiously conceived, modestly realized work are pretty much over once you’ve accepted its fanciful premise...Even when they’re over-emoting these characters seem to be mechanically ticking off boxes on a purgatory registration form, about not only their theories of Jesus but also their own hypocrisies...There’s only so much variation that can be wrung on the common knowledge-confirming, music-hall characterizations of these men."
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"Carter tempers his heady subject matter with lowbrow humor...Audiences looking for a debate of acid wit will be disappointed, especially as the play devolves into a group therapy session...Their soul-searching monologues are earnest and sincerely delivered by the performers, but they have the effect of making us feel like we're also in purgatory...Senior keeps the pain minimal with snappy pacing and straightforward design."
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"There's no shortage of cerebral fodder. Unfortunately, however, Carter has forgotten to infuse his windy discourse with sufficient drama. As a result, it mostly feels like a clever thesis written by an ambitious graduate student...The playwright's extensive comedy background is on ample display during the first part of the play...Despite more than a few examples in which the dialogue truly stimulates, ‘Discord’ sags under its own intellectual weight."
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"These three argue hotly with one another. They’re so contentious that they’re almost immediately alienating to each other as well as the ticket buyers. Worse, their conversation shortly becomes pointless...Late in the 85-minute gabfest, something pithy emerges...So Carter is insisting that—wait for this fresh surprise!—humankind is flawed, but that doesn’t preclude each of us from making important contributions...Under Senior’s steady direction, the actors do well at the incessant volatility."
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"'Discord' is a puzzling entity with little to offer other than three fine performers grasping at lines of script as they too easily slipped through their fingers onto the theater floor...The audience learns nothing about these men they did not know before they entered the theatre...If biblical commentary and exegesis by old dead white men sounds interesting, then 'Discord' might be your ticket."
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"Given Carter's day job, working for one of television's most polarizing figures, the flatness of the enterprise is remarkable. There isn't a single witty or memorable line in the script. Kimberly Senior's production at least keeps things moving...Carter's script does little for any of its three protagonists, reducing them instead to a set of Wikipedia-ready character traits...Why throw these three figures together unless you can make us see them in a new light?"
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"Has a title that lasts longer than its interest on stage...'Discord' unfolds in all the ways you’d expect it to, without ever providing a compelling explanation for what we’re all doing in a theater together...Each man here feels oversimplified to a central fixation...This apologia for the Problematic Great White Dead Dude is a turgid and unnecessary one...It takes more than a couple of Wikipedia articles to make a play."
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“This outlandish premise, which might have been the trigger for a 10-minute 'SNL' sketch, is then stretched nine times beyond that boundary, with increasingly diminishing returns not helped by any of the overdone performances…If the playwright were able to raise the temperature to the heat of a Bill Maher political dispute he might have something going; instead, he gives us warmed over philosophical and theological sound bites spouted by personages played without an ounce of honest feeling.”
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"A play that attempts to merge religious argument and personal confessionals with outlandishly over-the-top performances opened tonight in a faltering and heavy-handed production...The whole thing comes off rather like a debate among unruly middle school students...This clumsily rendered production only manages to emphasize the play's inherent flaws, in which the big questions it poses are addressed only superficially in favor of way too much posturing and clowning."
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"The discussion becomes tedious. It is not banter, though there is laughter. It is not incisive, but not quite obvious either...It’s not thin soup so much as well short of cassoulet. The actors inhabiting the great men have precious little breathing space. The dialogue is dense with reference and the pace is fierce...But when it comes to wrapping it up—the meaning of life, what’s it all about Alfie? Crickets."
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"Carter's maddeningly dull 'Discord' is the play a college kid writes after reading 'No Exit' and wondering if people get—like really get—that faith is tricky...After a few confessions, delivered with maximum self-importance, the dead celebs pick up notepads and, as projected stage directions inform us, ‘write.’ What are they writing?...It's unclear, but at least it points to the end of the show: salvation and release, for them and for us."
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"Everything about this show is problematic. Boutté’s Dickens is a caricature, while Laurence and Sesma underplay their roles. Ms. Senior’s direction makes this 85-minute play seem like an eternity and Mr. Carter’s play is an intellectual bore. This is definitely discord, but the question is whose?"
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See it if
Ambitious,entertaining but also tendentious, maybe boring for sophisticated adults, but just the thing to turn on inquisitive high schoolers

Don't see it if
If are impatient with academic debates, looking for action or substantive theological debate. Or for new light on the historical characters

Also
I’m sorry to have seen this so late in its run because it is a play I’d definitely recommend fo high school kids who will find it informative, provocative and entertaining. The play repeats the format of Sartre’s No Exit, with three characters locked in an antechamber to Heaven. While it lacks the sophisticated wit and complexity of Sartre, it offers its own humor and light on motivations which are not novel, but entertaining nonetheless. The characters, particularly Dickens are one dimensional portraits, but they work in a 90 minute play that teenagers will find gripping... Read moreRead less

See it if
You like any of these authors,are a fan of Biblical debates,don't know all that much about their personal lives

Don't see it if
You don't like Biblical history, want an interesting storyline,

Also
I was really excited to see this play and then sorely disappointed. It isn't bad in itself but the "plot" becomes bogged down in tedious explanations of each authors personal failings.... Read moreRead less

See it if
you enjoy being in a room listening to “intellectuals” one upping each other.

Don't see it if
you were expecting a meeting of the minds coming together by means of some time and space continuum for the purpose to debate each others.

Also
Despite the interesting premise of having founding father Thomas Jefferson, writer Charles Dickens and Count Leo Tolstoy meeting up purgatory to debating each others’ accomplishments and failures, if the audience isn’t able to initially ESTABLISH that the play opens up in purgatory, what’s the use of moving forward with the play about the arrival of these three well known historical figures in purgatory. Despite the gallant efforts of actor Duane Boutte (who plays Charles Dickens), Michael Laurence (who plays Thomas Jefferson) and actor Thom Sesma (who play Count Leo Tolstoy), I quickly became disinterested twenty minutes into the 90 minute shouting match and couldn’t wait for the play to be over.... Read moreRead less